作者：甘文

28岁，我迷上了路亚野钓，一整年天天都泡在武汉长江大桥下面。本来想着钓鱼图个清静，没想到却让我见识到什么是真的绝望。在长江大桥上，跳桥的人，真不是我夸张，高峰期一个晚上五六个，那水花一响，心头一颤。夏天是最多的，冬天冷了才稍微少点。我记得第一次看到有人跳桥，那时候我整个人都懵了，慌得不得了，眼睁睁看着一个人从桥上掉下去，落水，没了……说不难受是假的，心头堵得慌，晚上睡觉都梦得到。可是后来我居然麻木了。不是我冷血，是真看多了，心都麻了。你说一个人要活得多难，才会走到这一步啊？这世道，他们活着，真的是连活路都看不到。另外有些人啊，在外头还成天喊着党的恩情，可你见过那些活不下去的人吗？真见过吗？你亲眼看过一个人从桥上跳下去吗？如果没见过，就别在那儿说啥岁月静好，真要静好，那是有人用命换来的。你要是站长江大桥下去钓鱼，怕是什么静好都喊不出口了。

现在回头想，真正让我下定决心离开的，或许不只是我有多么强烈的反抗精神。是一件当时怎么也想不到会改变人生的事，我在二十八岁那年，学会了路亚（fishing lure）。原本只是想多一项爱好，闲下来的时候，到江边站一站，钓一会儿鱼，逃避生活的琐碎。我没有想到，那些日子，后来会成为我理解生命、理解恐惧，也理解自己为什么要走的一部分。

在武汉的长江边，我一次又一次亲眼看见有人从桥上跳下。我不知道他们的名字，不知道他们从哪里来，更不知道他们此前经历过什么。我只知道，也不是新闻里的故事，而是一个真实的人，曾经和我们一样，过着自己的日子。我报过警，遇到过电话忙线、怎么也打不通的时候，后来，也见过周围没有人再拨电话的场面，包括我自己。我发过抖音，质问为什么报警电话会在那样的时候打不通，达到了百万播放，却被限流，删评论。让我害怕的，不只是眼前发生的事，还有那种无力，你知道有人需要帮助，却不知道自己究竟还能做些什么。我至今保存着亲自拍下的两段视频，那些人后来是否被记录、是否进入相关统计，我没有办法核实。但我不愿意，他们最后只剩下一段被人划过的影像。一个人来过这个世界，不应该只留下一句“有人跳桥了”。

十八九岁起，我就开始接触绕过网络审查的技术，做过免费的工具，后来也参与过很多相关的技术支持与维护。我想让人们有机会接触不同的信息，也希望自己能够安全的做自己喜欢的事业，赚钱让家人有好的生活。

我不想把自己写成一个从来不怕、永远坚定的人。我有自己的坚持，也有很多舍不得失去的东西。我还记得封控期间，那位突发疾病、急需外出就医的邻居。为了让他能够出去就医，我曾驾车冲撞开小区门口的封控设施，之后因此受到多次传唤。当时我想的，并不是要做出什么了不起的举动，我只是觉得，人已经病了，得先让他去看病，至于别的事情，不是优先考虑的事情。

跳下长江大桥的那些人，那位需要就医的邻居，以及后来发生在我自己身上的事，在记忆里慢慢连在了一起，它们让我越来越在意一个朴素的问题，当一个普通人遇到过不去的难处时，他能向谁求助，又能不能得到回应？

到了2024年8月，我自己也被警方带走了，过去，我在江边替陌生人感到害怕。和惋惜，后来，我开始为自己和家人的未来害怕。那种恐惧并不需要什么宏大的解释，它很具体，我不知道自己会不会再次失去自由，不知道下一次还能不能回家，更不知道妻子和女儿还要为我担心多少次。

2024年12月，我又收到传讯通知，被要求于12月16日前往山东夏津，此前的经历，让我担心这次前去会再次被羁押，也担心自己可能与女儿长期分离。这成为我决定立即离开的直接原因。案情可以写进材料，时间可以整理成表格，通知书也可以扫描存档，可一个父亲想到自己可能无法陪女儿长大时，那种害怕，很难装在书面表达。我想看着女儿长大，送她上学，听她讲成长里那些琐碎的小事。我想有一天，她回头找爸爸的时候，我就在她看得见的地方。

怕再次失去自由，怕家人承受更多，怕一些原本以为理所当然的日子，忽然就再也回不去了。我说自己害怕，并不是说我知道未来一定会发生什么，而是越来越舍不得失去和家人在一起的生活的可能性。我并不是不怕才走的，恰恰是因为害怕，因为还有牵挂，因为还想快乐生活下去，我才决定走。

这些事情，写下来不过几行字。可对我来说，它们隔开的是两种生活，一边是熟悉的语言、街道和故乡，一边是我必须重新寻找的落脚之处。如果能够安稳地生活，谁会轻易舍得把已经熟悉的一切留在身后？

到了2026年了，只能每天听到说经济不好，人们吐槽自己赚不到钱了，我不知道每个家庭如今的处境，也不能替那些逝去的人解释他们的人生。我只是忍不住担心，那些两三年前就已经艰难活着的人，现在会不会更难了？对一个普通家庭来说，日子好不好，终究要落到一件件具体的事情上，工作能不能保住，下个月的房租有没有着落，家人生病时敢不敢去看，孩子需要的东西能不能买。

我盼着的，不过是一个人忙碌一天之后，能够安心吃顿饭，是父母面对孩子的时候，不必总把难处藏起来，是遇到困境的人，开口求助时，能够听见一句有用的回应。我已经离开，但我没有因为离开，就不再心疼那里的人。我也不盼着故乡变得更艰难，好用来证明自己当初为什么要走。恰恰相反，我希望有一天，曾经让我害怕的事情能够少一些，让人愿意留下的理由能够多一些。

我愿意看见那里的普通人生活安稳，愿意听到亲友说日子有了起色，愿意知道有人遇到难处时，及时得到了帮助。因为那里仍然有我的牵挂。因为那些我认识的、不认识的人，都有自己的家人，也有舍不得放下的生活。

如今再说这些，已经是后话了。我没有什么宏大的结语，只剩下一点很普通、也很真切的愿望：愿需要帮助的人，不必一次次失望。愿艰难活着的人，能够慢慢等来生活的转机。尤其愿我的祖国同胞们，往后的日子少一点苦，多一点安稳，多一点值得期待的明天。愿“好好活着”，不必成为一个人用尽全部力气，才能实现的愿望。

编辑：黄吉洲 校对：王滨 翻译：戈冰

Leaving Home Started with Lure Fishing

By Gan Wen

At the age of 28, I became obsessed with lure fishing in the wild, spending every single day of that year under the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge. I originally thought fishing would bring me a bit of peace and quiet, but I never expected it to show me what true despair really looks like. On the Yangtze River Bridge, people jumping off—I am truly not exaggerating—during peak periods, there were five or six in a single night. The moment that splash sounded, my heart trembled. Summer was when it happened most; only when it turned cold in winter did it decrease slightly. I remember the first time I saw someone jump off the bridge. I was completely stunned at the time, utterly panicked, watching helplessly as a person fell from the bridge, hit the water, and was gone… It would be a lie to say I didn’t feel awful; my chest felt suffocated, and I even dreamed about it when I went to sleep at night. But later, I actually grew numb. It wasn’t that I was cold-blooded; I had simply seen it too many times, and my heart had gone numb. How hard must a person’s life be to drive them to this point? In this society, as they live, they truly cannot see any way out. Furthermore, some people out there spend all day shouting about the benevolence of the Party, but have you seen those who cannot go on living? Have you truly seen them? Have you with your own eyes watched someone jump off a bridge? If you haven’t, then stop talking about how “time is quiet and smooth.” If it is truly quiet and smooth, it’s because someone paid for it with their life. If you stood under the Yangtze River Bridge fishing, you probably wouldn’t be able to shout anything about “quiet and smooth.”

Looking back now, what truly made me resolve to leave was perhaps not just how strong a rebellious spirit I possessed. It was something I could never have imagined would change my life at the time: in the year I turned twenty-eight, I learned lure fishing. Originally, I just wanted an extra hobby so that when I had free time, I could stand by the riverbank, fish for a while, and escape the trivialities of life. I did not expect that those days would later become a part of how I came to understand life, understand fear, and understand why I had to go.

By the banks of the Yangtze River in Wuhan, time and time again, I saw with my own eyes people jump from the bridge. I did not know their names, I did not know where they came from, and even less did I know what they had experienced before. I only knew that this was not a story in the news, but a real human being who once, like us, lived their own life. I called the police; I encountered times when the phone lines were busy and could not get through no matter what. Later, I also witnessed scenes where no one around made a phone call anymore, including myself. I posted on Douyin, questioning why the emergency police hotline would be busy at times like that. It reached a million views, only to be shadowbanned and have its comments deleted. What frightened me was not just what was happening before my eyes, but that sense of powerlessness—knowing that someone needed help, yet not knowing what on earth you could possibly do. To this day, I still keep two videos I shot myself. Whether those people were later recorded or entered into relevant statistics, I have no way to verify. But I am unwilling to let them end up as nothing more than a video clip swiped past by others. A person who came into this world should not leave behind only the phrase: “Someone jumped off the bridge.”

Since I was eighteen or nineteen, I began getting involved with technology for bypassing internet censorship. I made free tools, and later participated in a lot of related technical support and maintenance. I wanted to give people the opportunity to access different information, while also hoping I could safely pursue a career I liked, earning money to give my family a good life.

I don’t want to write myself off as someone who was never afraid and always resolute. I have my own convictions, and there are also many things I cannot bear to lose. I still remember during the COVID lockdown, that neighbor who suffered a sudden illness and urgently needed to go out for medical care. In order to allow him to get out to see a doctor, I drove my vehicle and smashed through the lockdown barriers at the entrance of our residential compound, and was summoned for questioning multiple times afterward because of it. What I was thinking at the time wasn’t about making some extraordinary gesture; I simply felt that the person was already sick and needed to see a doctor first. As for other matters, they were not the priority.

Those people who jumped off the Yangtze River Bridge, that neighbor who needed medical care, and the things that later happened to me personally—they slowly connected together in my memory. They made me care more and more about a simple question: when an ordinary person encounters an insurmountable hardship, whom can he turn to for help, and can he actually get a response?

By August 2024, I was taken away by the police myself. In the past, standing by the river, I felt fear and regret on behalf of strangers. Later, I began to feel fear for the future of myself and my family. That kind of fear required no grand explanations; it was very concrete. I didn’t know whether I would lose my freedom again, didn’t know if I would still be able to return home next time, and even less did I know how many more times my wife and daughter would have to worry about me.

In December 2024, I received another summons notice, requiring me to report to Xiajin, Shandong on December 16. My prior experiences made me worry that going there this time would lead to being detained again, and worry that I might be separated from my daughter for a long time. This became the direct cause of my decision to leave immediately. The facts of a case can be written into legal documents, timelines can be organized into spreadsheets, and summons notices can be scanned into archives; but when a father thinks about the possibility of not being able to watch his daughter grow up, that kind of fear is difficult to fit into written expressions. I want to watch my daughter grow up, walk her to school, and listen to her talk about those trivial little things in her growth. I want a day to come when she turns back to look for her dad, and I will be right there where she can see me.

Afraid of losing freedom again, afraid of my family bearing more, afraid that days I originally thought were taken for granted would suddenly never be recovered again. When I say I am afraid, it doesn’t mean I know for certain what will happen in the future, but rather that I am increasingly unable to part with the possibility of living together with my family. I didn’t leave because I wasn’t afraid; it was precisely because I was afraid, because I still had loved ones to care for, and because I still wanted to live on happily, that I decided to leave.

These matters, when written down, take up only a few lines of text. But for me, what they separate are two different lives: on one side are the familiar language, streets, and hometown; on the other side is the foothold I must start searching for anew. If one could live in stability, who would easily be willing to leave behind everything they have grown familiar with?

Now that it is 2026, all one can hear every day is that the economy is poor, with people complaining that they can no longer earn money. I do not know the current situation of every family, nor can I explain the lives of those who have passed away. I just cannot help but worry: for those who were already struggling to survive two or three years ago, is it even harder for them now? For an ordinary family, whether life is good or not ultimately comes down to concrete matters—whether a job can be kept, whether next month’s rent can be met, whether one dares to see a doctor when a family member falls ill, and whether one can buy the things a child needs.

What I long for is nothing more than for a person, after a busy day, to be able to eat a meal in peace; for parents, when facing their children, not to always have to hide their hardships; and for someone in distress, when calling out for help, to be able to hear a useful response. I have already left, but I have not, because of leaving, stopped aching for the people there. Nor do I hope for my hometown to become even harder, just to prove why I decided to leave in the first place. Quite the contrary, I hope that one day, the things that once frightened me will become fewer, and the reasons that make people willing to stay will become more.

I wish to see the ordinary people there living stable lives, I wish to hear relatives and friends say that life has improved, and I wish to know that when someone encounters hardship, they receive timely help. Because my heart is still tied to that place. Because those people—whether I know them or not—all have their own families, and all have lives they cannot bear to let go of.

To speak of these things now is already an afterthought. I have no grand concluding remarks, leaving only a small, ordinary, and very sincere wish: May those in need of help not be met with disappointment time and time again. May those struggling to survive gradually await a turnaround in life. And especially, may my compatriots in the motherland suffer a little less bitterness in the days ahead, and enjoy a little more stability, and a little more of a tomorrow worth looking forward to. May “living well” not have to be a wish that a person can only achieve by exhausting all their strength.

Editor: Huang Jizhou Proofreader: Wang Bin Translator: Ge Bing